"But, good Lord, I still have some apologizing to do."
February 23, 2016 7:09 AM   Subscribe

"Until last year, I was considered something of a champion of social conservatism in Canada and was well known among politically active Christians. I hosted a nightly show on Crossroads Television for twelve years, was a syndicated Sun columnist, and wrote briskly selling books with such titles as Why Catholics Are Right. Today, as a decade of same-sex marriage waves its arms at Pride parades, I am working away at a new book, Coming Out: A Christian’s Change of Heart and Mind over Gay Marriage. Oh, dear. How and why did it go so terribly wrong?" Michael Coren discusses how he changed his mind about same-sex marriage.
posted by mightygodking (95 comments total) 14 users marked this as a favorite
 
Finally, in 2013, Uganda’s biting homophobia brought me to my senses.

I feel like I've heard this precise narrative several times over: antigay right-wing Christian sees nothing wrong with homophobia in a Western context; hears the very same hateful rhetoric spewed by religious officials and/or politicians in an African country; suddenly views homophobia as barbaric and savage; recants.

I'm glad he got there in the end, but it's... interesting how he (and some others) seem to have gotten there.
posted by duffell at 7:29 AM on February 23, 2016 [40 favorites]


Coren is pretty much my definition of insufferable. Nice that he's come around on this issue but boy, it would also be great if he could try shutting it for a while, too.
posted by bonobothegreat at 7:32 AM on February 23, 2016 [10 favorites]


It's not just gay rights and same-sex marriage. From a recent tweet:

"Want to reduce abortion? Make contraceptives universally available; provide modern/thorough sex education; empower women; eradicate poverty."

This is a full-on political conversion.
posted by rocket88 at 7:33 AM on February 23, 2016 [46 favorites]


Honestly, I didn't know that Michael Coren was still around, but then, I really only ever knew him from being ripped apart in Frank magazine. So, checking teh wiki link to see what he's been up to:

Following the demise of Sun News Network in February 2015, Coren briefly joined The Rebel Media, an online conservative platform founded by Ezra Levant, but left the venture after a week.

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha...
posted by Capt. Renault at 7:37 AM on February 23, 2016 [14 favorites]


Wait, black people hate gay marriage? Hang on, I could be all turned around on this after all.
posted by Segundus at 7:40 AM on February 23, 2016 [4 favorites]


All else aside, I am sincerely glad he's evolved in his thinking. As a lapsed Catholic, I can't help but think of how the Church describes Reconciliation/Penance as one of the "sacraments of healing." When your thinking changes fundamentally like this, and you come to realize that you've harmed a lot of people through your rhetoric and the reach of your platform, it's your responsibility to turn your efforts toward correcting your past wrongs--even if it's impossible to do so in the time you have left on earth.

I don't know much about Michael Coren, but I hope this apology tour is about actually trying to make things right, and not just assuaging his own guilt or promoting his new book.
posted by duffell at 7:45 AM on February 23, 2016 [11 favorites]


As an inchoate Catholic, this was really great to read – thanks.

From the other end of the spectrum – as it were – a while ago I read a very well-thought although sort of sad article, by a conservative Catholic who is still very conservative and still very much of the opinion that homosexuality is a sin and who nonetheless thinks marriage equality is a good idea and thinks the Church should support it, not stand against it. I don't agree with him on everything, but his perspective is an interesting one, and it brings home to me the inevitability of the whole thing:
"In fact, same-sex marriage might prove a small advance in chastity in a culture that has lost much sense of chastity. Same-sex marriage might prove a small advance in love in a civilization that no longer seems to know what love is for. Same-sex marriage might prove a small advance in the coherence of family life in a society in which the family is dissolving. I don’t know that it will, of course, and some of the most persuasive statements of conservatism insist that we should not undertake projects the consequences of which we cannot foresee. But same-sex marriage is already here; it’s not as though we can halt it. And other profound statements of conservatism remind us that we must take people as we find them—must instruct the nation where the nation is... The answer is that we can’t predict the effects of same-sex marriage. I think some good will come, I hope some good will come, but I cannot say with certainty that all must go well with this social change. Still, as the church turns to other and far more pressing ways to re-enchant the world, we’ll have time to find out." Joseph Bottum: The Things We Share.
Actually, on preview, it seems as though people here might really despise Bottum. (Although I can't say I ever respected Michael Coren very highly, as glad as I am to hear he's decided to change his tune.) All the same, I like Bottum's piece. It's a good expression of a core fact that even the most conservative Catholic ought to be able to see: the Church is losing friends, it is losing its essential place as a light to the world and a force for good over a petty fight for something that won't help it in the modern world anyway, and that's a real tragedy.
posted by koeselitz at 7:45 AM on February 23, 2016 [9 favorites]


We should read the apostle Paul’s rejection of homosexuality in his letter to the Romans in a similar spirit. Paul chooses the word exchange, which implies straight men who use boys, usually young teenagers, for loveless sex. This was common in Greek and Roman cultures, and Paul condemns abusive power dynamics with catamites as selfish.

I don't think that's an accurate reading of Romans. Having come to realize that his adopted Church is wrong about homosexuality, Coren wants to reject the bigotry but retain his faith in Catholicism. But the Catholic prejudice against gay sex streams naturally from the very troubling teaching on sexuality generally that has marked the Catholic faith for centuries. Instead of adopting tortured readings of foundational texts to be Catholic without being anti-gay, it seems a better idea to let your discovery about how the Church has been wrong about sexuality to lead you away from Catholicism.
posted by layceepee at 7:46 AM on February 23, 2016 [8 favorites]


Instead of adopting tortured readings of foundational texts to be Catholic without being anti-gay, it seems a better idea to let your discovery about how the Church has been wrong about sexuality to lead you away from Catholicism.

It should be noted that a few months after Coren wrote this (last summer), he converted to Anglicanism, so he seems to agree with you.
posted by mightygodking at 7:49 AM on February 23, 2016 [12 favorites]


some of the most persuasive statements of conservatism insist that we should not undertake projects the consequences of which we cannot foresee

So that's why there's so much conservative support for continuing to run the world on fossil fuels! That has consequences we can foresee!
posted by flabdablet at 7:53 AM on February 23, 2016 [8 favorites]


He seems to have embraced his inner snap diva:

According to right-wing Catholic blogger David Domet, "Coren descends into pure evil." At least it's pure! Bless you darling.

Also:

Holy crap, Stephen Fry likes my book

posted by mandolin conspiracy at 7:54 AM on February 23, 2016 [3 favorites]


I don't believe there's much support for fossil fuels amongst conservative Catholics, but I may be wrong.

layceepee: “I don't think that's an accurate reading of Romans.”

Er – based on what? You don't really give an argument for this. What is your reading of Romans? On what do you base that reading?

“Instead of adopting tortured readings of foundational texts to be Catholic without being anti-gay, it seems a better idea to let your discovery about how the Church has been wrong about sexuality to lead you away from Catholicism.”

Instead of adopting tortured readings of the Constitution and Bill of Rights which attempt to see valuable democratic ideals and useful notions of jurisprudence in them, we should recognize that they're just insipid propaganda by native-slaughtering slave-owners and leave the United States immediately.
posted by koeselitz at 7:54 AM on February 23, 2016 [14 favorites]


I feel like I've heard this precise narrative several times over: antigay right-wing Christian sees nothing wrong with homophobia in a Western context; hears the very same hateful rhetoric spewed by religious officials and/or politicians in an African country; suddenly views homophobia as barbaric and savage; recants.

True, but I feel like there's another element - estrangement. Homophobia is easy for them to overlook in its US form - especially, I bet, with a guy like this who has lots of upper class gay acquaintances. It was probably easy for him to tell himself that it didn't affect people that much because the people he was around were rich enough (and male enough, sounds like) to be able to have privileged lives while still being out. And probably easy for him to tell himself this precisely because he didn't act in an overtly hateful manner to people around him.

I've often noticed in myself that I will put up with something really kind of shitty (like accepting that if I am visibly queer, I can get a job but I can't ever get promoted) because it's just always been my assumption that I have to choose between being myself and being promoted. It's only when I see other people getting treated much more openly badly that I start to see it actually bad.

I guess if the guy actually converted to Anglicanism and risked alienating his whole audience and his whole religious culture over this, I am willing to accept that he means it and that he does not suck, even if he is a bit loud and taking-up-space-y.

From being in a tight-knit activist community, I know that it can be very, very difficult and frightening to go against the consensus, even if you have a lot of self-confidence and a lot of status. I also know that it can be hard to lose your community over ideological stuff, even if you believe that they're wrong.
posted by Frowner at 7:55 AM on February 23, 2016 [30 favorites]


According to Wikipedia, this guy went from Jewish to a Catholic to an Evangelical to a Catholic to an Anglican. I think he's due to be Catholic again in the next 5-10 years before a deathbed conversion to Scientology or something
posted by Hoopo at 7:55 AM on February 23, 2016 [9 favorites]


I think some here are over thinking it.

He's simply adjusting his sails to catch the wind.
posted by Reasonably Everything Happens at 8:01 AM on February 23, 2016 [20 favorites]


(Er, homophobia is easy to overlook in its Canadian form....)
posted by Frowner at 8:02 AM on February 23, 2016 [4 favorites]


but it's... interesting how he (and some others) seem to have gotten there.

I frequently hear same sex marriage opponents use the slippery slope argument. I wonder if part of the push is seeing what happens on the other side of the slope, so to speak, actually play out rather horrifically (making their theoretical slippery slope look rather silly in comparison).
posted by ghost phoneme at 8:04 AM on February 23, 2016 [5 favorites]


It's a good expression of a core fact that even the most conservative Catholic ought to be able to see: the Church is losing friends, it is losing its essential place as a light to the world and a force for good over a petty fight for something that won't help it in the modern world anyway, and that's a real tragedy.

The problem is - for conservative evangelical Protestants, at least; I can't speak for Catholicism - that so many anti-gay religious leaders don't think of same-sex marriage as something petty. One common Southern Baptist saying is, "In essential beliefs, we have unity. [Ephesians 4:4-6] In non-essential beliefs, we have liberty. [Romans 14:1,4,12,22]. In all our beliefs, we show charity. [1 Corinthians 13:2]" It's just that their definition of essential vs non-essential is completely different from mine. I figured you were good as long as you accepted that Jesus had died for your sins, believed in the doctrine of the trinity, etc. (Maybe also the whole issue of paedo- vs credobaptism?) But apparently same-sex marriage in the civil arena is just as much of an essential issue. Who knew?
posted by imnotasquirrel at 8:06 AM on February 23, 2016 [1 favorite]


" I’ve also been fired from columns that I wrote for years, been banned from various Catholic TV and radio stations, had speeches cancelled, and been accused of cheating on my wife. My children have been called gay, and I have been compared to a child molester and a murderer."

Those probably all jerked each other off about how damn Christian they were.
posted by GallonOfAlan at 8:08 AM on February 23, 2016 [2 favorites]


If you're unfamiliar with the guy, here's a sampler of his about face:

Old CorenTM:

Michael Coren On Canada's Forced Gay Education Agenda For School Children

New CorenTM:

Change and Outrage


He may be a bit of a blowhard but he's definitely changed his mind - that may well be because the market for his brand of bigotry was shrinking, thereby threatening his livelihood as a "broadcaster and journalist."

So...if he's gonna blow, it's better that he doesn't completely suck while doing it.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 8:11 AM on February 23, 2016 [1 favorite]


"So...if he's gonna blow, it's better that he doesn't completely suck while doing it."

...like Mega-Maid?
posted by I-baLL at 8:17 AM on February 23, 2016 [6 favorites]


@imnotasquirrel - You're absolutely right. It's just that the essential beliefs that establish one as an Evangelical (North American) Christian have become pretty much completely political over the last few decades. Two topics on which no dissent is tolerated: abortion and gays. (I think I'm agreeing with you, not really refuting anything you said)

See the many awesome writings of Fred Clark
posted by tippiedog at 8:19 AM on February 23, 2016 [7 favorites]


He may be a bit of a blowhard but he's definitely changed his mind - that may well be because the market for his brand of bigotry was shrinking, thereby threatening his livelihood as a "broadcaster and journalist."

I think this is unfair. Coren's change of position came while he was still gainfully employed by Sun News as a regular columnist and while he had his TV show on Crossroads. He could have continued to operate within those parameters for another couple of decades quite easily. He lost those gigs after he changed his mind publicly, not before.
posted by mightygodking at 8:19 AM on February 23, 2016 [10 favorites]


> Those probably all jerked each other off about how damn Christian they were.

For a sizable number of Christians their religion is primarily a tribal identifier, like a band t-shirt, and has as much of a connection to the teachings of Christ as, say, The Baseball Furies had to the sport of baseball.

> Michael Coren On Canada's Forced Gay Education Agenda For School Children

648 views and 2 comments! That was pretty good for Sun News, which I kind of wish had lasted until Oct. 20th, 2015.
posted by The Card Cheat at 8:21 AM on February 23, 2016 [5 favorites]


My skepticism about his reading of Romans comes from the claim that the choice of the single word "exchange" has an implication that the criticism of the sexual practices described in verses 24-27 is limited to straight men having loveless sex with catamites. Coren himself doesn't argue this; he just asserts it. There may be translations of the text that don't describe the behavior Paul is criticizing as involving "men with men" (which would be a strange way to describe specifically pederastic relationships), but I'm not aware of them.

I have read arguments on both sides of the question of whether the passages in Romans condemn homosexuality per se or just some limited instances of homosexual behavior, but I'm not an expert, which is why I qualified my characterization as an opinion.

Instead of adopting tortured readings of the Constitution and Bill of Rights which attempt to see valuable democratic ideals and useful notions of jurisprudence in them, we should recognize that they're just insipid propaganda by native-slaughtering slave-owners and leave the United States immediately.

If the person claiming to find readings of the Constitution that provide useful notions of jurisprudence took pains to describe themselves as an originalist in the tradition of Anton Scalia, I'd be similarly doubtful of the success of the enterprise.

I don't think study of Biblical texts is useless, but identifying them as the literal word of God strikes me as likely to make them less useful than they would be otherwise.
posted by layceepee at 8:23 AM on February 23, 2016 [2 favorites]


layceepee: “I don't think study of Biblical texts is useless, but identifying them as the literal word of God strikes me as likely to make them less useful than they would be otherwise.”

The Catholic Church emphatically does not proclaim the letter to the Romans – or any other part of the Bible – to be the "literal word of God." Literality – such as it is – doesn't enter into it at all. As such, there are a lot of difficult things about interpreting scripture, and it's the job of the Church to try to do so.

In any case, my larger point was merely this: if you disagree with a thing, that doesn't necessarily mean you must leave the institution immediately. It might mean that, like most human beings, you hold the institutions that matter to you in high regard, and honor them, even though you disagree with them in some respects and aren't ashamed of saying so. Maybe I'm biased, since that's the position in which I find myself, but it certainly isn't unheard of for Catholics to hold opinions that aren't exactly rote repetitions of Church doctrine – and furthermore I think the world at large is a better place if those people stay in the Church, and aren't "led away from Catholicism" as you put it.
posted by koeselitz at 8:30 AM on February 23, 2016 [15 favorites]


As a general observation: I am uncomfortable with the automatic assumption that anyone who changes their mind about a bad idea does so only to get ahead. I am also uncomfortable with the practice of saying "well, this person rejected their old bad beliefs, but they didn't do it in a sufficiently humble and personally-transformed way, so they're still pretty terrible".

I tend to think that unless there's some really obvious reason to believe that someone changed their mind for corrupt reasons, I'd rather accept it as a real change. It's also difficult to see, sometimes, what people are giving up when they change their minds. It's easy to say "well, your ideological community is pretty small, you can find new friends and a new job" or whatever, but it seems a lot harder to do that when it's your own situation. I know from personal experience that it can be difficult enough to buck consensus when the consensus is simply "young queer hipster activists in a mid-sized provincial city", and that sounds pretty ridiculous to anyone outside that milieu.

Also, I think there really needs to be a middle ground between "you changed your mind but in the wrong way and with the wrong affect, you suck" and "here is a whole box of special ally cookies, you hero!"

Someone who goes from having conservative views about gay people to being reasonably accepting is making a huge ideological change. I myself can go from undervaluing femme gender presentation to making positive public statements about it and get lots of pats on the back from my community, when that's a fairly small and easy ideological move to make. This dude made a much bigger and more difficult change and should at the very least have that taken at face value. He started far to the right and moved to the center; I get pats on the back for starting far to the left and moving an extra few inches leftward.
posted by Frowner at 8:49 AM on February 23, 2016 [45 favorites]


You are right--the word "literal" was poorly chosen. But "word of God" is a valid description of Catholic theology, I think, and is problematic whether it's regarded as literal or not.

I agree with your larger point that people don't necessarily need to walk away from institutions that matter to them, even when they are aware those institutions are flawed. But if the price of them staying is saying, "Well, the institution's sacred document don't really say that" (rather than saying, "Yes, the documents says that, but the document's wrong), then I think there's an unhelpful dynamic at work.

Probably our fundamental disagreement is that, as a product of a Catholic childhood that I recall with great fondness and some sense of loss, I still believe that the world at large is a better place if people walk away from the Church. That's why I see passages like the one in Romans as more useful if they can prompt what might be an uncomfortable schism between the Church and people who see the anti-sexual message that's central to the text.
posted by layceepee at 8:51 AM on February 23, 2016 [4 favorites]


- Instead of adopting tortured readings of foundational texts to be Catholic without being anti-gay, it seems a better idea to let your discovery about how the Church has been wrong about sexuality to lead you away from Catholicism.

- It should be noted that a few months after Coren wrote this (last summer), he converted to Anglicanism, so he seems to agree with you.


That is very understandable but it doesn't in itself justify "leave Catholicism" as the solution for all the people who are liberal-minded and support civil rights like gay marriage and contraception and yes even abortion - and, these days, that pretty much describes the majority of people in a lot of traditionally Catholic countries. And while most of those people may not be very religious or practicing at all, well, neither do most people culturally raised in the Anglican Church (possibly even less). Regardless of statistics about religious practice, Catholicism has a strong cultural and social influence in many societies still across the world, you cannot ignore it or wish it away by magic.

It doesn't matter what you think of any religion, it only makes sense to have new readings of the "foundational text" - that is and HAS been the way forward for any religion across centuries, otherwise all of Christianity would be stuck at using the Bible and Gospels to justify burning heretics. The history of Christianity across centuries is ALL a history of "tortured" readings and rereadings - because those foundational texs were written thousands of years ago and it'd be ridiculous to take them as law for today.

Revising and reinterpreting the texts and moving forward with civilization is and has always been the only way forward at cultural, social level. Of course, leaving the religion you grew up with is a perfect legitimate choice at *individual* level - but you cannot expect it to be the solution at mass social level.
posted by bitteschoen at 9:01 AM on February 23, 2016 [2 favorites]


I am also uncomfortable with the practice of saying "well, this person rejected their old bad beliefs, but they didn't do it in a sufficiently humble and personally-transformed way, so they're still pretty terrible".

I grew up around a lot of Catholics in Ontario and Coren on TV or in print could be found at the house from time to time. This guy has said a lot of stupid shit over the years. I'm looking at this turn in a similar way as I look at my daughter's toilet training. Yes, it's great he finally came around and congrats and all, but in my mind Coren's still very high risk of shitting his pants again at any moment.
posted by Hoopo at 9:10 AM on February 23, 2016 [6 favorites]


I am uncomfortable with the automatic assumption that anyone who changes their mind about a bad idea does so only to get ahead. I am also uncomfortable with the practice of saying "well, this person rejected their old bad beliefs, but they didn't do it in a sufficiently humble and personally-transformed way, so they're still pretty terrible."

I actually agree, despite my comments upthread. Broadly speaking, the left tends to be a lot more particular with their personal transformation narratives--you have to stick to the script or else the transformation is not legitimate. And I don't think that's constructive.

And yet--when somebody has a change of heart, I do think what really matters is whether their way of being & acting in the world changes as a result. If a change of heart is unaccompanied by any outward change in word or deed, I remain unimpressed... which I suppose is a result of my Catholic upbringing (funny, that).
posted by duffell at 9:11 AM on February 23, 2016 [1 favorite]


Anyways, at least he's not David Warren.
posted by Hoopo at 9:14 AM on February 23, 2016


I was part of an LGBT group that did a quiet protest when Coren was one of a series of deeply homophobic guest lecturers invited to campus by the "students for life" club almost 14 years ago. I believe he has genuinely changed his mind on this, but he's got many years of saying incredibly nasty things about queer and trans people to make up for before I'll give him the time of day.
posted by sevenyearlurk at 9:16 AM on February 23, 2016 [6 favorites]


> He's simply adjusting his sails to catch the wind.
> posted by Reasonably Everything Happens


So much this.
posted by benito.strauss at 9:28 AM on February 23, 2016 [5 favorites]


I'm not saying that folks need to be welcoming someone with open arms after they've spent a long time saying harmful and hurtful things - it's more that I think it's better to assume that a major change of heart accompanied by at least some action is a real change of heart, and to assume that the person is at least trying to do better. It's totally legit to say "hey, it's good that you no longer hold these terrible views and I appreciate that, but I still don't want to [sit next to you at the event, write you a reference letter, recommend your books, etc etc]".

To me there's a big difference between "I believe that you've changed but you still have a lot to make up for" and "I think you're lying, also you're selfish even if you're not lying".
posted by Frowner at 9:33 AM on February 23, 2016 [8 favorites]


That's why I see passages like the one in Romans as more useful if they can prompt what might be an uncomfortable schism between the Church and people

I'm not sure that that is realistic...most Catholics I know (hi! I'm also a recovering Catholic with mostly fond childhood memories) either ignore or actively disagree with some teaching of the Church. That's just how it is for many people, so saying "you think you may disagree on teaching X, just leave!" is a bit of a non starter.

I have relatives who deeply struggle with religion, about what churches to attend, etc. It's not something that I fully understand myself, but it's something that I can see causes them great strife (and in my family's case, there is no threat of being thrown out by the devout members if one leaves the faith).

So it seems to me that some people are going to be pulled towards religion, regardless of how perfectly or imperfectly their internal values align with current teachings. Encouraging discussion about interpretation serves two purposes in my mind: it can help an individual take mental baby steps to leave the Church because of a fundamental disagreement, or encourage an individual to agitate for progress within.

I guess my experience with religious relatives also leads me to be unsurprised by, and not judgemental of his repeated changing of religions, especially in light of his "evolving" internal values. Not to say anyone he's hurt needs to forgive him even if they do believe him, it's just not necessarily a mark against (or for) his sincerity.
posted by ghost phoneme at 9:33 AM on February 23, 2016 [2 favorites]


I'm not sure that that is realistic...most Catholics I know (hi! I'm also a recovering Catholic with mostly fond childhood memories) either ignore or actively disagree with some teaching of the Church. That's just how it is for many people, so saying "you think you may disagree on teaching X, just leave!" is a bit of a non starter.

I agree that "just leave" is not likely to be an argument that is convincing to many Catholics, which is why I wanted to push back against the argument I saw Coren making in this piece.

He describes having his own moment on the road to Damascus in respect to homosexuality; he suddenly realizes the hateful Catholic dogma that he'd been publlcly supporting for years was wrong. And he was (credit where credit is due) moved to say pubicly: I was wrong. We shouldn't shame homosexuals, or discriminate against them.

But he also felt moved to argue "A key piece of scripture that's been used to defend Catholic discrimination against homosexuals doesn't isn't really a blanket condemnation of them at all. Being Catholic doesn't mean being anti-gay."

And I think it's worth responding by saying, "Yes, that passage in Romans really is a blanket condemnation of homosexuality. Being Catholic does mean being anti-gay. " I acknowledge that may be an uncomfortable place for Catholics to find themselves, but I think it's worth confronting the truth of Catholicism.

Maybe for Catholics who want to stay, it's enough to say, "Yes, this has been the teaching of the Church. Yes, this is the plain meaning of the text in the Bible. But we are going to break with that, and we are going to remain Catholic." But I think it's necessary to confront the anti-sex attitudes (not just anti homosexual, but anti-sexual) that have for centuries defined the Church rather than just explaining them away.
posted by layceepee at 9:48 AM on February 23, 2016 [2 favorites]


You're absolutely right. It's just that the essential beliefs that establish one as an Evangelical (North American) Christian have become pretty much completely political over the last few decades.

This isn't so. US Evangelicism is closely tied to politics. Canadian evangelicism is not, and it is especially not tied to many aspects of conservatism. Obviously Canadian evangelicals are generally against marriage equality and abortion, but they are much more in favour of social justice-related policies. Citation. What's more, they don't treat those conservative items as litmus-test things -- they don't vote based solely one or two issues the way US conservatives treat abortion, guns, and marriage equality as litmus-test type issues. And that means there's much less unity in the voting and political participation patterns of evangelical canadians. Note, if you happen to pick up the book, the Canadian evangelicals who can't remember if in the last election they voted for the conservative party of the NDP (i.e. the socialists).

There are lots of reasons for this, but one is that evangelicals in Canada are less likely than US evangelicals to draw us vs. them distinctions along all sorts of lines, including poverty. They see the poor and otherwise marginalized as members of the same community they are, not somehow outside or less deserving, so the social justice stuff comes to feel much more urgent than it does when you treat the poor as inherently undeserving. And if you're busy voting based on social justicie, that can push things like same-sex marriage to the side as voting criteria.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 9:54 AM on February 23, 2016 [2 favorites]


An on that reading of Romans and of the story of Sodom, I've heard that reading many times, including in Catholic school. It's hardly revolutionary.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 9:55 AM on February 23, 2016


layceepee: “But I think it's necessary to confront the anti-sex attitudes (not just anti homosexual, but anti-sexual) that have for centuries defined the Church rather than just explaining them away.”

Oh, I agree with this bit wholly. But I don't believe that saying that the Bible is not fundamentally anti-sex (or anti-gay, or anti-Jew, or anti-Muslim, or anti-science, or...) is the same thing as "explaining away" the millennia of oppression that any Christian, lapsed or not, Catholic or not, must confront. It might be that the best way to confront that legacy of horrific tragedy is by saying: it was wrong all along, and it does not comport with any correct religious practice according to the scriptures. That doesn't take away our responsibility, our heritage in that. If I believe I am part of the Church, then I can't avoid the fact that that means being part of a terrifying history and attempting to come to terms with it.
posted by koeselitz at 10:01 AM on February 23, 2016 [1 favorite]


And I think it's worth responding by saying, "Yes, that passage in Romans really is a blanket condemnation of homosexuality.

How can it be when homosexuality as a concept and as an identity did not exist at the time the passage was written. It can't be condemning "being the type of person who is primarily attracted to people of the same sex" because there was no concept of that existing as a type of person. It would be like. All it can be condemning is a behaviour. The behaviour it's condemning does include same-sex sexual activity, so one can see why one would go there, but it also includes it in a particular context and the context is included in the connotations of the word, so it's kind of impossible to know if that same sexual activating would be similarly condemned outside that context.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 10:02 AM on February 23, 2016 [1 favorite]


"In fact, same-sex marriage might prove a small advance in chastity in a culture that has lost much sense of chastity. Same-sex marriage might prove a small advance in love in a civilization that no longer seems to know what love is for. Same-sex marriage might prove a small advance in the coherence of family life in a society in which the family is dissolving."

This is basically my position. Jonathan Rauch has written extensively and, to my mind, persuasively that support for gay marriage is entirely compatible with a conservative worldview.
posted by kevinbelt at 10:05 AM on February 23, 2016 [1 favorite]


I think this is unfair. Coren's change of position came while he was still gainfully employed by Sun News as a regular columnist and while he had his TV show on Crossroads. He could have continued to operate within those parameters for another couple of decades quite easily. He lost those gigs after he changed his mind publicly, not before.

Bull. Greg Nog has it. Coren knew better and set it aside for his career, he says so himself - reminder:

But I never hated, because I couldn’t. I had too many gay friends, had been helped by too many gay people, simply did not care viscerally about the issue—which, in a way, makes my behaviour worse. It’s not that I was dishonest or disingenuous. More than anything, I was dogmatic.

Once I’d taken up the banner of anti–marriage equality, it became increasingly difficult to cast it off. I may sound weak, even pathetic and cowardly, but by 2012 I was hosting a daily show on the invincibly right-wing Sun News Network, writing columns for four Catholic publications, speaking to Catholic groups throughout North America and the United Kingdom, appearing on Catholic radio, and publishing Catholic books. A mingling of income, self-perception, and reputation made it difficult to say what I truly felt.

posted by cotton dress sock at 10:10 AM on February 23, 2016 [2 favorites]


So the joke from 2004 that "gay people aren't threatening the sanctity of marriage, Britney Spears is" is going to become the new conservative Catholic doctrine?
posted by clawsoon at 10:10 AM on February 23, 2016 [1 favorite]


It can't be condemning "being the type of person who is primarily attracted to people of the same sex" because there was no concept of that existing as a type of person.

To the contrary, that is exactly what Paul is doing in that passage: He isn't talking about a behavior alone, but the desire for that behavior. "Men...burned in their passion for one another."

I wonder sometimes if staying within one's faith depends on whether that faith has a long history of, and apparatus for, taking the hateful parts of the text and turning them into something different. As a personal matter, I would find it very difficult to return to the evangelical protestantism of my youth, because for all that biblical literalism is an exercise in twisting up the text, it's hard to read a statement like Paul's and not say, "He's pretty clear, and there's no way around it, and I don't belong in this."
posted by mittens at 10:11 AM on February 23, 2016 [1 favorite]


But Catholic teaching and practice itself has never been about biblical literalism, the literalism and the arguments about what this or that passage really means is only pulled out as a trick when it's convenient for political reasons. I think the piece does a good job of pointing out the hypocrisies and the damaging effect of that trick.
posted by bitteschoen at 10:15 AM on February 23, 2016


Also, I think there really needs to be a middle ground between "you changed your mind but in the wrong way and with the wrong affect, you suck" and "here is a whole box of special ally cookies, you hero!"

This is totally fair.

But having followed Coren for years (why do I do things like that to myself?), and actually having met him in person, I can't swallow this:

I said some bloody careless things, and at the very least empowered those who genuinely did have a hateful agenda.

To me, he's at best minimizing some of the viciously bigoted things he's said with a snide grin on his face, all the while getting paid to do it.

He was hateful. Him saying he wasn't suggests he still doesn't fully grasp the impact and import of what he was doing. Maybe one day he will.

I don't expect him to wear sackcloth and ashes, and I don't expect him to pass some "was my apology humble enough" test. I just get annoyed, knowing how far he took things in the past, with him saying "I never hated."

Not true. He did hate, and he did it for a living.

I guess I'm looking for an acknowledgement that rings true to me?

This being said, I'm glad he's changed his mind, I don't want to make the perfect the enemy of the good here.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 10:22 AM on February 23, 2016 [9 favorites]


I wonder sometimes if staying within one's faith depends on whether that faith has a long history of, and apparatus for, taking the hateful parts of the text and turning them into something different.

I've wondered this a lot, too. Especially I've wondered about how different religions handle this and about the particular challenges that Mormons face, since unlike most other large religions, they have new scripture dropped on their lap every time the prophet speaks.

"Men who are burning for their passion for one another" are men who are doing something (burning in their passion). Homosexuality as a concept and identity did not exist at the time. Men who burned in their passion for one another weren't a type of person anymore than "thief" as a type of person.

Like now there are people who don't eat cilantro and people who do eat cilantro and people who LOVE cilantro and would put it on anything. If one day two thousand years from now this becomes an identity, that won't make it true that all the anti-cilantro ravings I've spewed on this site will be about cilantro-lover-as-a-type-of-person-and-identity because that identity does not exist at the time I am ranting. It would be an anachronism to say that because I referred to cilantro-lovers (meaning people who do that thing called loving cilantro) that I was referring to people two thousand years later who have cilantro-loving as a fundamental part of their identities.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 10:29 AM on February 23, 2016 [1 favorite]


How can it be when homosexuality as a concept and as an identity did not exist at the time the passage was written.

OK, so it's a wholesale condemnation of homosexual behavior as opposed to homosexual identity. I'm not sure why that's an important distinction, unless you want to make sure homosexuals are allowed to exist so long as they remain chaste.

The behaviour it's condemning does include same-sex sexual activity, so one can see why one would go there, but it also includes it in a particular context and the context is included in the connotations of the word, so it's kind of impossible to know if that same sexual activating would be similarly condemned outside that context.

Here's the text from the specifically Catholic Douay-Rheims version. What limiting context are you talking about that leads you to believe the it's not same sex activity tout court that's being condemned here:

For this cause God delivered them up to shameful affections. For their women have changed the natural use into that use which is against nature. And, in like manner, the men also, leaving the natural use of the women, have burned in their lusts one towards another, men with men working that which is filthy, and receiving in themselves the recompense which was due to their error. [And as they liked not to have God in their knowledge, God delivered them up to a reprobate sense, to do those things which are not convenient; Being filled with all iniquity, malice, fornication, avarice, wickedness, full of envy, murder, contention, deceit, malignity, whisperers, [ Detractors, hateful to God, contumelious, proud, haughty, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, Foolish, dissolute, without affection, without fidelity, without mercy. Who, having known the justice of God, did not understand that they who do such things, are worthy of death; and not only they that do them, but they also that consent to them that do them.
posted by layceepee at 10:33 AM on February 23, 2016


So remember kids, disobey your parents, and you're worthy of death!
posted by mittens at 10:35 AM on February 23, 2016


from the second link, this is a singularly great sentence that has much to say about the dumbness of our world:

In 1985, I joined the Roman Catholic Church, which employs more gay men than any other institution in the world—despite leading the culture war against gay rights.

Here's to folks changing their minds.
posted by philip-random at 10:35 AM on February 23, 2016 [3 favorites]


OK, so it's a wholesale condemnation of homosexual behavior as opposed to homosexual identity. I'm not sure why that's an important distinction

Because he can only condemn the behaviour as it exists and the behaviour at that time exists in an exploitative context very different from the way that it generally exists today. Where it still exists in an exploitative context, we still condemn it, just like we condemn exploitative heterosexual sex. And the context is the context in which gay sex existed at the time where it was a powerful man taking advantage of a young and often powerless (or in the power of the older person) boy. By context I meant "the world he knew" not "the other words in nearby verses."

And btw, I'm clarifying what this interpretation is supposed to be, not exactly defending it. I mean I think it's correct that Paul is condemning a particular kind of gay sex (the only kind that he sees at that time), but that's neither here nor there to what I think. If he's just condemning any kind of sex between two men that could possibly exist in any time and in any universe, I wouldn't then take on that view myself.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 10:43 AM on February 23, 2016 [1 favorite]


So remember kids, disobey your parents, and you're worthy of death!

And for the love of all things pure and sacred, don't mix your textiles!
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 10:47 AM on February 23, 2016 [2 favorites]


I do not think the passage supports the reading of an exploitative one-sided relationship. I think the "for one another" suggests reciprocity. I certainly understand the idea of homosexuality as an invented category/identity that could not have existed (with its particular psychoanalytic history and emphases) two thousand years ago, but getting too deeply into the history of homosexuality as identity leads to the chicken-and-egg problem (who were the people being described as homosexuals, and why was there a need for the category if these people did not already exist?).

Which...yeah, I know, it's a derail. Paul is so frustrating. I want to like him. At times, I've loved him. He's just so bitchy and mean. He's the sort of person who would call you and you would stay up until 2 am dishing on all your friends. Why couldn't he just let this one issue slide? But he could not.
posted by mittens at 10:53 AM on February 23, 2016


mandolin conspiracy: And for the love of all things pure and sacred, don't mix your textiles!
Deuteronomy 22:11 says:
Do not wear clothes of wool and linen woven together
That's "wool," the ancient Aramaic for "plaid," and "linen," their word for "stripes."


Look, I am an active, practicing Catholic. Weekly Mass, my wife teaches CCD, the whole lot. But I also wear a "Scouts for Equality" pin and teach my kids not to hate. I am pleased to see my Pope saying positive things that reflect the Awesome New Testament Jesus (and not the Scary, Mean, Old Testament God), and I am genuinely hopeful & excited about him changing centuries of bad, bad dogma. I do not agree with every tenet of the Council of Bishops, nor do plenty of my co-religionists. We're not a bloc of faceless drones.

if you want, I will even type "#notAllPapists" if it makes anyone happy -- but it's true.
posted by wenestvedt at 10:56 AM on February 23, 2016 [5 favorites]


I suppose it's possible that the 'black people in Africa are being anti-gay? I'd rather be liberal than identify with black people' form of racism could precipitate a change in heart, but I'd rather believe that the intensely, even lethally hateful nature of institutional homophobia under the banner of Christianity in parts of Africa (and elsewhere) was a much more convincing reason to re-assess his own beliefs. After all, Catholicism and other world-wide branches of Christianity have plenty of black people in congregations and positions of authority - Anglicanism in England has a black arch-bishop - so I would be very unhappy to infer a racist component in Coren's change.

As for spotting which way the wind's blowing and changing to match it- again, well, perhaps. But it's far from unknown for people to react the other way, to increase their determination and fanaticism in the face of unfavourable facts and swelling opinion, and it's hardly a sin to change your mind if lots of others are doing it too. The implication is that this change of heart is in some way hypocritical, synthetic or lightly held, and I see no evidence of this.

Repentance is absolutely core to Christianity, and Christianity teaches it leads to redemption. This is an extremely good way to behave towards people - and to yourself - and I join with the rest of heaven in rejoicing when it happens, because it is a very hard thing to do.
posted by Devonian at 10:57 AM on February 23, 2016 [2 favorites]


Not true. He did hate, and he did it for a living.

By his own account, he was playing the role of 'hateful bigot' on his show and in his columns, but didn't actually feel the hate. I see no reason not to take him at his word.

Soldiers at war often don't hate those they kill, but they do so anyway because that's their role. Not an exact analogy, but I think it fits.
posted by rocket88 at 10:58 AM on February 23, 2016 [1 favorite]


Being able to change your mind about things is great, and the fact that even in this hyperbolic age people can do it about things they were once stridently against like homosexuality is also great. But despite his apologizing, I have difficultly believing that the full flavor of the crow is yet apparent to this guy.
posted by JHarris at 10:58 AM on February 23, 2016 [2 favorites]


"most Catholics I know (hi! I'm also a recovering Catholic with mostly fond childhood memories) either ignore or actively disagree with some teaching of the Church."

North American Catholics take the rules too seriously. Americans and Canadians come from rule-abiding societies where they argue viciously about rules and laws but once they're made, generally follow them even in the absence of any punishment or oversight. The Catholic Church is functionally, in its legalistic functions, an Italian church. And Italian church leaders are constantly amused and appalled by how seriously North Americans take the rules. Italians argue less with authority figures -- they'll be like "Oh, what a great idea, Your Holiness! It's so brilliant!" -- and then completely ignore the rule and never follow it. They don't consider that most rules are made to be followed, especially when they're unenforced or consequence-free. Rules are made to express ideals or values with the assumption that 99% of people, not being Jesus, will fall short of them. Americans and Canadians, on the other hand, are like, "THIS IS A TERRIBLE RULE, POPE-MAN, WE HATE THIS YOU'RE AWFUL" but then when it becomes the Official Rule, they all obey it even though they hate it. This is totally puzzling to Italians who agree and ignore. You can see how it sets up a lot of culture clashes when Italians just want North Americans to smile and nod and then ignore a dumb rule, and the North Americans want to argue about it (in the press, no less!) for months on end ... and then end up following a stupid rule nobody really intended to be taken seriously as a RULE, just as a sort of statement of ideals.

Anyway, "Catholics who ignore and disagree with at least some of the teachings of the Church" is the natural state of Catholicism, not a degenerate modern version. The modern North American version where everyone tries to follow ALL the rules and get up in each other's faces over "Cafeteria Catholicism" is the oddity.

(True story: The Vatican secretariat that oversees the Pontifical colleges in Rome ordered them all to start teaching in Latin because Latin is dying out in favor of English as the international language of the Church's official business, and this is problematic for a variety of reasons. So the Italian College said, "Wow, what an awesome idea that will totally save Latin!" and continued to teach in Italian without bothering to implement it. The German College switched to Latin immediately even though hardly any of the professors OR students could speak it, and everyone stumbled through lessons, badly and miserably, with dictionaries to hand. The American College got together a committee, produced a report, and appealed to the secretariat for an extension on implementation because they had a multi-page plan for the implementation of Latin at an acceptable level for collegiate teaching but it would take them at least two years to get it fully up to speed because of the intensive training necessary for professors and current students, and the language tests they'd have to implement for incoming students. By the time the Americans turned in their report, the guy in charge had already forgotten he'd ordered the change, and couldn't believe the Americans had a serious implementation plan. He sort of thought people would Potemkin Village him with their Latin when he came around to visit, and he would be happy because there would appear to be Latin and everyone else would be happy because they could ignore the rules about Latin, and the point would have been made that Latin is important and preferred, which was the purpose of the whole exercise.)

"OK, so it's a wholesale condemnation of homosexual behavior as opposed to homosexual identity. I'm not sure why that's an important distinction, unless you want to make sure homosexuals are allowed to exist so long as they remain chaste."

Because it was written 2,000 years ago and it is talking about ancient people in an ancient context, not about modern people in a modern context. The underlying ideas/truths of the texts may be universal, but the texts themselves are culturally-bound and mired in the specifics of the moment of their composition and the entire project of Christian hermeneutics is working out the specific versus the universal. You're arguing for 1) a limited number of fixed sexual identities over time and throughout cultures, which simplifies human sexuality and culture to the extreme; and 2) a literalist reading with little to no interpretive framework. You're insisting that Catholics -- who are not Biblical literalists (and indeed that is a form of heresy for Catholics) -- read the Bible like modern, Biblical-literalist American Protestants and getting upset when they don't and won't. That's alien to the Catholic hermeneutics. I think penguin's done a good job explaining some of the interpretive framework.

"Here's the text from the specifically Catholic Douay-Rheims version."

Way deprecated and not in use any longer in any official capacity, if you want to get picky about versioning. (Which is another sort of literalism, really.) The "official" English-speaking Canadian and American Catholic Churches are the New American Bible (US); and the New Revised Standard Version - Catholic Edition (Canada). (NABRE is actually in use in the revised liturgy in the US but hasn't been approved as "the" official translation yet; it's still NAB.)
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 11:04 AM on February 23, 2016 [12 favorites]


Here's a good question that was asked about another convert: Is he still promoting his old books? Do they show up for sale on his website? Has he done what he can to withdraw them from sale elsewhere?
posted by clawsoon at 11:05 AM on February 23, 2016 [1 favorite]


Paul is so frustrating. I want to like him.

Not me. I'm perfectly happy to believe he derailed the whole religion. And maybe if he were alive today he WOULD be homophobic, who knows? I just think this passage isn't really evidence of that. Btw, I've always wondered how this passage was translated before the word homosexuality existed. I looked it up and KJV has the Timothy letter (which in newer versions includes the word homosexual" translated as "them that defile themselves with mankind." and the Romans letter? "burned in their lust one toward another;" which doesn't necessarily suggest reciprocity and equality to me.

So in short. I don't like Paul, but I think he may get a bit of a bum rap here. He may not. It's possibly that even today he would oppose gay-ness in it's current form, but I don't think his letter to the romans is evidence of that.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 11:06 AM on February 23, 2016 [1 favorite]


A memory of some fifteen years ago: Coren came to give a homily at one of the churches I attended. The church was Anglican and split very sharply between progressive types, and those who I would call conservative to the point of being reactionary. The clergy were on the progressive side, and the conservative types would be unspeakably rude to them and publicly disrespect them at any opportunity. They wrangled Coren's invitation. When I arrived and saw who was giving the homily (nothing was mentioned the previous week), I found my parents and told them I was leaving. Coren had nothing to say to me, and I laid out the reasons why. My mother went white as a sheet. Coren had been standing behind me, and had a very odd look on his face. He'd clearly heard everything I said. I would like to claim I made some heroic speech, but I didn't, I was just mortified. I stayed, and sat through the homily, the message was we Anglicans should stop Anglicaning, stop being such lefties, and just come back to The ChurchTM. It was awful, offensive, and made me very angry.

I applaud Coren for changing, and I'll give him the benefit of the doubt. But I do want to say that this is a real Damascene conversion.
posted by sincarne at 11:08 AM on February 23, 2016 [4 favorites]


On the topic of this guy specifically, I have an acquaintance who in college was an activist, anti-gay, anti-woman, anti-everything Catholic. And I frequently ended up having to deal with him because I was on the other side of the issues, and he was like my fucking nemesis and I have a GREAT DEAL of personal dislike for him.

Fifteen years later, he pops back up in my life ... as a major Democratic fundraiser and functionary, who helped get Obama elected, who campaigned for gay marriage in our state, who is a solid and respected soldier in Democratic campaign efforts and 100% committed to progressive causes.

And I just feel like my jaw is just basically constantly dropped when I have to deal with him, and I have a very hard time putting my suspicions aside. I'm SUPER-GLAD he saw the error of his ways and abandoned them wholesale and is, by all accounts of people who only know him in his new life, a kind and personable man who lives a good life. People would be shocked to hear him described as an "utter dickhead," which would be about where I'd start. And I mean, God forbid any of us be judged by stupid shit we said in college. But at the same time, I do feel like I'm always half-watching for him to rip his mask off and still be the monster underneath. I keep these thoughts to myself because who am I to shit up his new life? Whatever he's been through that changed him so completely must have been profound, and I imagine painful, and also none of my damn business. But it is all very strange and it makes me feel very strange when I have to interact with him.

Maybe some day I'll be in a position where I can ask him what did happen; I would be very curious to know and to try to understand. (Obviously I have theories, but I try not to let my imagination run away with me ... he's just a dude in the world trying to do his best.)
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 11:12 AM on February 23, 2016 [12 favorites]


Maybe I give him the benefit of the doubt because I'm also a "converted" conservative (pretty much a Randian libertarian at one point) and am now a card-carrying member of the socialist NDP.
I don't just believe honest changes of heart are possible - I know for a fact they are.
posted by rocket88 at 11:15 AM on February 23, 2016 [8 favorites]


I would go so far as to say that even if you believe the "transformation" to be something other than genuine, enthusiastically treat them as though it's a genuine and heart-felt change. I suspect that eventually the person will start to feel more genuine about it and, if not, they've kind of dug themselves into a hole where they have to keep pretending to be a good person and doing good thing.
posted by VTX at 11:17 AM on February 23, 2016 [3 favorites]


But I think it's necessary to confront the anti-sex attitudes (not just anti homosexual, but anti-sexual) that have for centuries defined the Church rather than just explaining them away.

Oh definitely yes. I think I just see pointing to the Bible as side-stepping that issue and not the most effective way to drivea wedge between Catholics and the Church: most Catholics I know do not read the Bible literally, thats just not what you do. It's something to be read and discussed, to inform but not literally dictate your world view. It is not a scientific text, for example. There are many things in the Bible that are obviously not literally true and are somewhat horrific (especially old testament). So there's already an established pattern of not ignoring the Bible, perse, but understanding you don't just blindly follow it.

And you're right, the church's actions, on this and many fronts, has been horrible at one point or another. And it is the actions of the Church which are most problematic for many of my family and friends. I see many people say: "The church is/was wrong about this, but Catholic I remain (or become, in some cases) as I work to make the Church/world better."

It's the actions of the church that start to push some of them away, more so than differing interpretations of biblical passages.

I should specify that this is just from my experience (Blue Midwest State, mostly college educated, solidly middle class), which I know is not universal, but I don't think it's completely isolated either. Maybe I've just generally been exposed to more Catholics who are in "it's natural state" state of practice than is typical for the US?

I think holding fast to the interpretation angle would work better for someone who reads the Bible as the more literal word of God. I did meet, briefly, a young earth Catholic once. I thought she seemed very confused about a lot of things, and a bit of an oddity. Perhaps this is more common than I thought?

On preview: Eyebrows explained it much better.
posted by ghost phoneme at 11:24 AM on February 23, 2016 [1 favorite]


Oh hey, the guy that Ezra Levant just fired? LOL, oh Ezra...
posted by Theta States at 11:29 AM on February 23, 2016


most Catholics I know do not read the Bible literally, thats just not what you do. It's something to be read and discussed, to inform but not literally dictate your world view. It is not a scientific text, for example.

my mom's side of the family was Catholic. One of my uncles (or second cousins or whatever) was a man of the cloth. Not a priest but a teacher (he wore the collar, people called him Brother). I remember him engaging me once on the topic of evolution (I would've been about twelve). To him, it was obviously a sound theory, and backed up by the Bible -- the Book of Genesis being pretty much how you'd explain it to a superstitious, tribal people.
posted by philip-random at 11:39 AM on February 23, 2016 [2 favorites]


Eyebrows McGee, your point that the Douay Rheims version is outdated would be salient if the current version was significantly different in regards to the passage in question. Here's the translation from the New American Bible What are the relevant changes I should be noting?

Therefore, God handed them over to degrading passions. Their females exchanged natural relations for unnatural, and the males likewise gave up natural relations with females and burned with lust for one another. Males did shameful things with males and thus received in their own persons the due penalty for their perversity.

As long as you are at it, take a shot at explaining what that part about females exchanging natural relations for unnatural is doing in a passage that's actually limited to criticism of "straight men who use boys, usually young teenagers, for loveless sex," if I'm to credit Coren's exegesis.
posted by layceepee at 11:41 AM on February 23, 2016


Deuteronomy 22:11 says:
Do not wear clothes of wool and linen woven together
That's "wool," the ancient Aramaic for "plaid," and "linen," their word for "stripes."


Interesting.

Biblical fashion crimes!
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 11:46 AM on February 23, 2016 [1 favorite]


Skepticism is fine and dandy, but give the guy the benefit of the doubt. As a religious person myself (although I'm not sure which religion that would be most of the time), this is what I feel the spiritually inclined should be doing. Rereading and rereading texts. Constantly questioning your own interpretations and beliefs. Searching your own heart for guidance. And if your beliefs change, good for you. You came about it honestly. Church leaders and parishioners who just take the accepted interpretations and say "This is what I believe and that's that" and never change aren't very serious about their religion IMHO.
posted by downtohisturtles at 11:58 AM on February 23, 2016


"As long as you are at it, take a shot at explaining what that part about females exchanging natural relations for unnatural is doing in a passage that's actually limited to criticism of "straight men who use boys, usually young teenagers, for loveless sex," if I'm to credit Coren's exegesis."

I'm not actually interested in defending Coren or his exegesis. I'm just pointing out that you're playing an evangelical exegetical game in a Catholic context. It doesn't work. You can keep demanding that Catholics play on a literalist playing field, but that's not where Catholic hermeneutics operates. As long as you keep insisting on literalist, timeless interpretations, instead of textually-informed, time-bound interpretations, we can't really even have a conversation because we're doing two entirely different things. You're not going to get an answer you like from any of the Catholics in this thread because they're trying to answer you within a Catholic framework, and you keep demanding they use an evangelical one. That's the most familiar one to modern North Americans, but it doesn't mean it's the most common, and well-educated Catholics won't use it.

On a more general note I don't typically engage in much New Testament exegetical work because I don't read Greek beyond about 100 words. I studied Hebrew in grad school and focused my exegetical studies on the Hebrew Prophets. So anything I have to say about Romans specifically is neither interesting nor particularly informed. I'm not trying to discuss the specific interpretation; I'm trying to discuss the process of interpretation itself and why you're not getting the answers you want. There's a fundamental disconnect occurring between you and folks like penguin. They're not going to agree with you because you're using an argument that's fundamentally foreign to the Catholic exegetical process.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 12:01 PM on February 23, 2016 [15 favorites]


By his own account, he was playing the role of 'hateful bigot' on his show and in his columns, but didn't actually feel the hate. I see no reason not to take him at his word.

Because he's telling you you shouldn't take him at his word? If Coren didn't believe what he pumped out, as he's claiming, he not only has zero integrity, and should be disbelieved in the first instance (whatever he says, however he says it), but - given his educational and personal background - he did this knowing his output would be harmful beyond itself, knowing he had the power to stoke fires. He privileged his career over the lived experience of people already vulnerable to hurt. It's not like there weren't other opportunities during the time he was coming up. He's no soldier, he's a mercenary. He needs a job, that's it.
posted by cotton dress sock at 12:02 PM on February 23, 2016 [3 favorites]


(I'd almost feel more generous about a conversion if he were ever sincere.)
posted by cotton dress sock at 12:07 PM on February 23, 2016


cotton dress sock: Because he's telling you you shouldn't take him at his word? If Coren didn't believe what he pumped out, as he's claiming, he not only has zero integrity...

Coren takes an interesting tack on that. He says that he did believe what he was saying, but that he didn't feel hate. It was an issue of intellectual dogma for him, rather than a visceral hatred of gays:
But I never hated, because I couldn’t. I had too many gay friends, had been helped by too many gay people, simply did not care viscerally about the issue—which, in a way, makes my behaviour worse. It’s not that I was dishonest or disingenuous. More than anything, I was dogmatic.
He says that the bloodless dogmatism which informed his writing on homosexuality "in a way" makes his behaviour worse. (Worse than if he was acting hypocritically or worse than if he was acting viscerally, I don't know.)

But then he turns around and says, "A mingling of income, self-perception, and reputation made it difficult to say what I truly felt." So... your criticism certainly applies to some of his career, if not all of it.

I still feel a certain amount of sympathy for the time when his beliefs were changing, based on my own year of teaching Sunday School to children as my faith was draining away. It's a horribly wrenching situation to be in, and it's hard to see what harm you might be causing because your own little bubble of self-doubt and fear looms so large.
posted by clawsoon at 12:37 PM on February 23, 2016


Disagree, clawsoon. He's actually trying to elevate his hypocrisy, as if it were a position he's suggesting was somehow principled ("dogmatic"). Bullshit all the way through. Nah, he took a line that worked and defended it to keep what he had.
posted by cotton dress sock at 12:46 PM on February 23, 2016


When looking back at my own youthful dogmatism, I wouldn't describe it as either principled or hypocritical. It existed as a set of ideas which I accepted on faith. Those ideas didn't translate into how I thought about individual people. It's as if they existed in two different realms that didn't connect. I could easily talk about abstract categories of good and evil without connecting them to anyone in my life.

Hmm. Perhaps that was hypocritical. It wasn't actively so, though; it was a hypocrisy of ignorance, or, more to the point, a failure of thought, a failure to connect two modes of thinking.

And now that I'm thinking about it, connecting those two modes of thinking was not done. No-one was ever accused of a specific sin in my church, that I know of. You talked about abstract sins, and you talked a little bit about how you might look for specific sins in yourself, but beyond that they were two completely separate realms. I was never taught to condemn anyone else for their sins; I was only taught to condemn myself for my own sins.

But by repeating dogma, I was - duh! now that I think about it - telling others to look for sins in themselves, though the abstract was never connected to the personal. Or, rather, in my mind the abstract was connected to the personal coming in, but not going out.
posted by clawsoon at 1:18 PM on February 23, 2016 [1 favorite]


'm not actually interested in defending Coren or his exegesis.

I did have the impression that both you and penguin were specifically defending Coren's interpretation of the text, but perhaps you are both limiting your support to his central thesis, which is that Romans didn't condemn homosexuality per se, but only the homosexual practice that Paul was familiar with, and the condemnation wasn't due to the gender of the individuals involved in the behavior but that it took place in the context of exploitative relationships between an authoritative individual and a weaker partner victim of his will.

I think mitten identified some aspects of the passage that don't fit with that interpretation, like the specific reference to a mutual lustful relationship, and it's also difficult to see how the Paul who was identified with the scripture "Slaves, be obedient to your masters" is concerned here with authoritative exploitation rather than sex. Also the responses from both of you have elided the specific reference to sex between women.

Perhaps it's possible to offer a convincing textually-informed, time-bound interpretation that the passage in Romans isn't a blanket condemnation of homosexual behavior based on the gender of the individuals in the relationship, but I don't think Coren did that, and I don't think you or penguin did either.
posted by layceepee at 2:38 PM on February 23, 2016


The "textually-informed, time-bound interpretation" of the beginning of Genesis, according to Catholic doctrine, is that it didn't happen that way at all; evolution happened. So keep that in mind when you think about the range of interpretations which Catholics might apply to a Biblical passage, including the one in question.

"And on the seventh day" : "Men with men committing indecent acts" :: "Billions of years of evolution" : "Nothing wrong with gay sex"

(You can see why Luther effectively said, "But they're reading it wrong!" Catholics seem to be okay with that, though. The Calvinist-informed part of my brain breaks when trying to think that way, but... to each his own.)
posted by clawsoon at 2:59 PM on February 23, 2016 [2 favorites]


Honestly I find Romans 1 a mystery. Maybe someone can help me out. It's clearly talking about men abandoning their "natural" intercourse with women in favor of men -- I think it's tough to avoid that point -- but I guess I don't understand the historical context for it.

1. So we're talking about adult men sleeping with adult men? But isn't male homosexuality in antiquity more or less limited to pederasty, i.e. adult men sleeping with prepubescent boys? Is Paul referring to a real historical practice?

2. So this comes in a long list of sins committed by people who worship idols instead of God and who profess to be wise. Who exactly is Paul talking about here? Some real people out there, or is this a story about the past? All pagans? Pagan philosophers?

I'm sure there are standard interpretations of all this. I just find it confusing and rather ambiguous.
posted by crazy with stars at 4:14 PM on February 23, 2016


Those who change their minds from lies and hatred to truth and love should be welcomed with open arms (though cautiously of course), not for their sake or for the sake of our cause, but for the sanctity of our own souls. If the side of love isn't forgiving, it's not really the side of love.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 4:33 PM on February 23, 2016 [1 favorite]


The effort involved in making sure that everyone who believes in the truth and proclaims it has a pure consistent history and unimpeachable motives is wasted effort. When the barricades are down and the fort is vanquished you can start assessing why and when each soldier started fighting and hand out medals for longest and most valorous service. Until then slap everyone on the line on the shoulder and keep pushing forward.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 4:40 PM on February 23, 2016


But isn't male homosexuality in antiquity more or less limited to pederasty, i.e. adult men sleeping with prepubescent boys?

I will say that it is very difficult to read this sentence, knowing the harm this particular libel has done to generation after generation of men. To this day, it seeps in to every discussion like an invisible poison gas, with the knowledge that, deep down, this is how straight people view things.

What is one to say to the idea that a vogue among ancient Greeks should be the sole defining feature of a sexuality for all time? Did men not discover other adult men until the 19th century? Was the entire concept foreign until then? Clearly not. Yet the libel persists.
posted by mittens at 5:07 PM on February 23, 2016 [5 favorites]


I'm not religious, ok, but iirc, and happy to be corrected, the rough idea is that although Christ was supposed to be pretty accepting, repentance wasn't unimportant to him.

(I personally have never hesitated to accept a sincere apology, i.e. one that expressed full recognition of wrongdoing and hurt caused, at a minimum, and maybe an attempt to offer recompense. Extremely cautious about cannily timed dramatic displays with shades of (continuing) rationalization. I mean, this person has been foul, in so many ways. On top of which, his whole schtick was outrage. E.g.)

Until then slap everyone on the line on the shoulder and keep pushing forward.

Yeah, I mean from an outcomes POV, I think his apology could possibly be useful to the people he's hurt, to the extent that his former viewers/readers buy it and take notice. (But I don't know - here's a pro-lifer's take on him; some more generous comments here, for an idea of what we're talking about.)
posted by cotton dress sock at 5:43 PM on February 23, 2016


It was a honest question. With Foucault and I think most modern historians of sexuality I tend to see sexualities and sexual desire as culturally constructed and liable to change over time, rather than taking an essentialist view of sexuality (no moral judgment intended). The ancient Greeks should not define a sexuality for all time, but I do think it would be a mistake to think that they desired and had sex in exactly the same way we do. Perhaps this is a straight understanding of sexuality, as you suggest

I would caveat my earlier question to say that it is pretty clear that the ancient Romans did have sex with adult men, e.g. this recent book on Roman homosexuality. To judge from that book, though, it looks like many scholars still see sexuality among the ancient Greeks as constructed along an age-based model. For example:

Although erotic configurations other than those in accordance with the pederastic model no doubt did occur among Greek males, the nearly complete absence of such configurations from the surviving textual record constitutes an eloquent silence: the notion that a man might display sexual interest in male partners beyond the bloom of youth is rarely attested in a value-neutral tone in the Greek sources.

I still am trying to understand Romans 1 in its historical context, i.e. mapping it onto Greek and Roman configurations of sexuality. I still find it difficult to understand what Paul is going on about: what he's talking about doesn't really seem to make sense in a Greek or Roman context, where he seems to imagine a world where the majority of relationships are societally-permitted same-sex relationships between both men and women. Is this some kind of fantasy?
posted by crazy with stars at 6:13 PM on February 23, 2016


"I still am trying to understand Romans 1 in its historical context, i.e. mapping it onto Greek and Roman configurations of sexuality. I still find it difficult to understand what Paul is going on about"

Okay, so, given that I don't read Greek and my knowledge of the New Testament is somewhat superficial, here's a couple very high-level points that may help. First, keep in mind that Paul is brilliant, erratic, sometimes idiosyncratic in his use of Greek which can make him a bit tough to translate, highly opinionated and given to strongly-stated opinions that do not always carry over from one letter to another, and writing to specific communities with specific problems and questions, and we're only seeing one side of the correspondence. In some of his letters he is clearly being hyper-specific to a particular community; in others he is addressing wider issues of interest to the whole Christian community; in others, he may not carry forward the same point he originally makes in a different letter. It's not hard to get Paul to disagree with himself. (Romans is typically considered one of his more universal letters; he had not yet been to Rome and was writing to well-respected elders who had not met him, rather than to friends he already knew whose communities he'd visited or helped found, and so is thought to be on better behavior in Romans and to have written more carefully and with more structured thought than in some other letters.)

Second, when Paul talks about "passions" (or whatever English word is chosen), he very often means practices of ecstatic religious cults that involve altered states of mind. Such mystery cults were as common as dirt in the Ancient Near East at the time Paul was writing; they were often small and hyperlocal; some of these small groups practiced hair-raisingly bizarre rituals. (Although, really, a guy ritually reenacting cannibalism has no room to talk.) Most scholarly commentators -- not all, but many -- think he's talking about sex-related rituals of one such cult. Immediately prior (22-23), he talks about how "though they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles" -- cultic images common to some mystery cults of the region. As the statements about sexuality follow immediately on this discussion and seem to be part of the same thought, it's reasonable to read Paul as speaking specifically about mystery cults; it's rather UNreasonable to lift 24-27 from the preamble explanation to it that starts around verse 18. (PROBABLY in 24 he's speaking of heterosexual cultic orgies, not just marital sex or consensual sex or knee-tremblers in the barn, but orgies intended to worship "idols" and probably involving altered mental states, but that's a lot more tentative as you can't draw it directly from the text; you have to know quite a bit about the cultic practices of the time and place. But that's an inference many scholars draw.)

(Going back to more comfortable ground for me, I think if we're meant to connect this section to the Old Testament, we're probably looking at Phinehas and the heresy of Peor in the Book of Numbers. Israelites intermarried with Baal worshippers, and some of them then engaged in ritual sexual practices of Baal. One Israelite man brought a foreign woman into the Israelites' camp and they began having ritual sex possibly right in front of the Ark of the Covenant (or at least its tent), partly to be like "Moses you fucking dumbass your God can't even lead us out of a desert"; Phinehas loses his shit and drives a single spear through both of them, killing them mid-copulation, pleasing God mightily. The problem there is clearly not extramarital sex or sex with foreign women or anything like that (the story is in the midst of MULTIPLE discussions of what sorts of women Israelite men can have sex with, that bit's all fine) -- the problem is intercourse being used as idol-worship. I think Paul's problem here is arguably (but not conclusively) similar-- not so much the sex-qua-sex but the sex-as-idol-worship he is obviously very upset about.)

Third, digging in to Paul's word choice, what's usually translated as "unnatural" is "παρὰ φύσιν" or "para physis." "Against nature" is an okay enough translation, but it clearly can't mean "against nature" in the sense of IMMORAL (as per Natural Law use of the phrase), because in the very same letter, in Romans 11:24, Paul approvingly describes GOD'S action of grafting the Gentiles onto the Jews to bring the new covenent to both peoples as παρὰ φύσιν, against nature. So it can't be as simple -- even within this single Pauline text -- as reading a straightforward "natural law" statement about things that are "unnatural" being immoral. We can't simply apply a limited literal meaning to specific words, because Paul uses the words in multiple ways and (probably) intends the echo here.

Someone who actually has Greek would be able to look through all the uses of "physis" and "para" in Paul and wiggle out more of his connotative uses of the words. Also I'm hazily aware there are several other Pauline writings about ecstatic mystery cults and their sexual practices, but the only one I can think of off the top of my head is a glancing reference to Cybele self-emasculation practices in Galatians.

Okay I feel like I should draw some conclusions or provide an actual interpretation to finish the post, but I don't actually have one because I'm not educated enough in this part of Scripture; I just have those starting points to offer that maybe you can follow through some scholarly papers or commentaries elsewhere, and maybe some ideas about why it's not a simple or straightforward task to unwind what Paul "meant."
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 7:07 PM on February 23, 2016 [7 favorites]


Also relevant to the FPP:

Coren today on Torontoist:

For many years I was known as a high-profile opponent of same-sex marriage and some of the aspirations of the LGBTQ community; I even won a major broadcasting award for taking the “no” side in a debate on the subject. I like to think that my arguments were never hateful, and I certainly maintained warm relationships with several gay people. But looking back, I almost certainly enabled hatred by giving an intellectual veneer to the arguments against equality. There’s no way of sugarcoating this. I was wrong, did wrong, wrote wrong, spoke wrong. I’ve apologized numerous times and although contrition can become laborious after a while, actions and consequences are as important as words.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 7:38 PM on February 23, 2016 [2 favorites]


So the cynical part of me wanys to say: "OK dude. You're promoting a book. We get it."

On the other hand, my non-cynical part thinks that because he's horrified his previous followers/fans/co-religionists/employers with his about face, his audience is really homophobes and he's telling them how sad and shitty it is for them to keep clinging to their hate.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 7:48 PM on February 23, 2016


And all this being said, I still think he's minimizing his previous career as a full-time homophobe. But hey - he could have kept on keepin' on as he was so here we are.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 7:54 PM on February 23, 2016 [1 favorite]


Yeah, I wonder at someone who's not three years away from his chief enterprise of homophobia (along with his other work of supporting hawkish stuff, challenging women's reproductive rights, etc) finding he has enough to say to fill a book, so soon. The piece you just linked to mostly centers on his own post-conversion suffering, support he received from people, the grandeur of his wrong-wrong-wrongness - though he still doesn't think he was so hateful... One would think a person who agreed he was that wrong might want to take some time and reflect on things, maybe discuss how he contributed to antihuman discourse, maybe consider a bit more in depth what effects that might have had. He's got to work, so he's got to talk, and he can't stop being himself, I guess. He's lucky to benefit from the kind of graciousness he's received, though.
posted by cotton dress sock at 8:43 PM on February 23, 2016 [3 favorites]


For the record, while you're discussing the finer interpretations of Romans and what it says about homosexuality and homosexual practice, here's something that is going on in Rome that kind of fits tangentially with that entertaining and apparently a bit clichéd but actually not at all inaccurate picture that Eyebrows McGee gave of the Catholic Church in her comment up above.

At the moment, the Italian parliament is struggling to pass a law on same-sex civil partnerships. What with the Vatican being literally round the corner, both physically and metaphorically, you can imagine that's not been an easy straightforward process free from external influences. And it's been going for ages actually. Interestingly, and very much in contrast with his predecessor, this Pope has stayed out of it, and there's a growing rift with the much more politically intrusive President of the Italian Episcopal Conference, Cardinal Bagnasco, who overtly supported conservative protests agains the law and even called for the Italian Parliament to allow a secret ballot on the law - a suggestion on which another relevant figure in the Church, the Secretary General of the Italian Episcopal Conference, Nunzio Galantino, said: "out of respect for Parliament and institutions, I prefer not to comment".

There's a decent summary on the WaPo that gives an idea of how those different approaches from the Church play into the debate, and has a few more interesting quotes from Galantino:
The Italian news media took note when Francis abruptly canceled a meeting with Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco of Genoa, the president of the Italian bishops conference, after he publicly backed the Family Day protest. Meanwhile, Bishop Nunzio Galantino — whom Francis appointed as secretary general of the Italian conference — has offered a highly nuanced and somewhat novel position.

In an interview with Corriere della Sera, he reiterated the Catholic teaching that marriage is between only a man and a woman, and he said he strongly opposes adoption rights for same-sex couples. But he also seemed to acknowledge society’s obligation to recognize the “growing presence of unions of a different kind.”

“The state has a duty to give answers to everyone, respecting the common good first,” Galantino said.


Point is: none of that is about the interpretation of some biblical passage. The matter is entirely political. The struggle is about the political and social influence of the Church, and the different approaches on that, and the struggle between sticking to the official position while not alienating more people (especially these days, with the effect Pope Bergoglio has had on revitalizing participation and involvement at local level and all, and attracting more sympathies than his predecessor on a lot of other political issues, and after the sobering lesson of the Irish referendum).

In all this, what the apostle Paul wrote in his letter thousands of years ago is irrelevant, not just in principle but even more so in practice.
posted by bitteschoen at 4:10 AM on February 24, 2016 [3 favorites]


cotton dress sock: But I don't know - here's a pro-lifer's take on him
...the first time I saw him in action at a pro-life conference put on by Toronto Right to Life, he reduced a teenage girl almost to tears by responding abrasively and mockingly to a question about abortion in the case of rape.

...

He loudly jeered at the pro-choice protestors, at one point informing one of the girls that she “wasn’t good-looking enough to be on Sun News.”
Ouch. Okay. If you're doing that, you definitely know that you're hurting people. That's not bloodless dogmatism. That's just being an asshole.

Which then leads to the question: If that's the kind of guy he is, is he really the guy you want to have advocating for your side?
posted by clawsoon at 7:35 AM on February 24, 2016 [1 favorite]


First of all, I don't think we get to choose who advocates for our side. He has an audience and he has opinions. He's going to express them no matter what we think of his character or his lack of progressive bona fides. And he's not asking for a free pass on his shitty history, either.

But I think someone like him is an asset. Much of the conservative mindset is logical but based on flawed assumptions. Few people know that better than him. I think someone like Coren is in a good position to expose those flaws to other Christian conservatives and maybe convert a few more. And it really doesn't matter if all those converts are assholes or did hurtful things in their past. All that matters is that they vote for progressives.
posted by rocket88 at 8:54 AM on February 24, 2016


But looking back, I almost certainly enabled hatred by giving an intellectual veneer to the arguments against equality

He gave an "intellectual veneer" to bigotry, did he? I must have read his stuff before he finished all the detailing I guess
posted by Hoopo at 10:51 AM on February 24, 2016 [2 favorites]


By his own account, he was playing the role of 'hateful bigot' on his show and in his columns, but didn't actually feel the hate. I see no reason not to take him at his word.

I give zero fucks what is in his heart. I care about his actions, which up until this point have been the actions of a nasty, hateful bigot, actions directly targeted at me and people like me. He's going to have to eat a lot of fucking crow before I even consider giving him an ally cookie.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 7:38 AM on February 27, 2016 [1 favorite]


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